Fatigue

Fatigue '08

Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker wrote about Democrats and the overall 2008 saturation recently, and I think many Americans would agree: enough parsing, enough news, enough already. Yeah, we need to know about these candidates and their positions. Yes, we would like them to be more frank in their responses. Sure, we want to know whether or not they are representing the best interests of the people—yeah, whatever. But how many more debates, stump speeches, polls, thrusts and parries, and lies must we endure in this off election year? Sorry, Republicans, but Nosferatu Giuliani’s latest, ah, “exaggeration” about how much time he spent at the WTC clean-up handedly wins the Emmy for best performance of legend in one’s own mind. And The New York Times wins the award for best new drama for The Days & Conflicts of Martha’s Vineyard, starring the Clinton and Obama supporters.

What’s even more amazing is that we have over a year to go. Meanwhile, there is some “real” disturbing news on the electoral front that seldom registers on the front pages or in the American psyche, right, left or center. Take, for instance, this unsolved controversy over paper trail-less electronic voting and how “easy” it is to tamper with results. And what about how the Republicans in California would like to change how the electoral votes in the state are distributed? Yes, I’m being totally partisan—and a bit conspiratorial—but what about the corollary involving certain Secretaries of State, political parties, and voting outcomes? Sorry, I haven’t recovered from the 2000 cake-up of Kathleen Harris.

Indeed, we (and I mean everybody) are interested in 2008; we’ve all been terrorized enough by Bush and company. But instead of being over-saturated with nano-second news on which state will out-mojo the next for "the" primary date, porn-star named Mitt Romney’s family of boys, Hillary’s cleavage, and Johnny’s sexy hair, I think we could all focus on more pressing issues related to and not related to the election to avoid '08 fatigue.